So the mystery of the Major's murder was solved at last, and Sir Henry, as he thought it over in his chamber that night, realized that he had received the greatest tribute that mortal man could pay to his acting. His art had been so perfect--he had appeared the incarnation of terror, remorse, and retribution--that to that struggling soul he had been as the voice of conscience,--nay, as the very voice of God. For the man had actually given way, broken down, and confessed a secret crime under the mighty spell of his acting, and, as the criminal in the play, had died in the confession! OUT OF THE WEST "The sun sets fair in that Western land, Romance rides over the plains; There hearts are gay at the close of day,-- Man's duty's done, God reigns." WARREN GILES IN OKLAHOMA AN IDYL OF THE PRAIRIE IN THREE FLIGHTS "The sun lay dying in the west, The fresh breeze fanned my brow, I rode the steed I loved the best-- Would I were riding now." I.--THE FIRST FLIGHT Most written stories end with a wedding, actual or prospective; but this story, like most stories in real life, begins with one. The little old stone church in Manhattan, Kansas, was crowded to the doors one June afternoon. The gray-haired President, the younger men and women of the faculty, and a small sprinkling of the towns-people were there; but the great mass of the congregation was made up of the students of the State Agricultural College, which was situated on a gentle hill just outside the town. It was Graduation Day, and the day on which Sue Belle Seville and Samuel Maxwell had elected to get married. Samuel was a Kansas boy, Sue Belle a Kentucky girl. They were both orphans and both graduates from the college that day in the same class: Samuel from the agricultural and mechanical department, Sue Belle from the housekeeping, culinary, domestic sciences, and other of the many departments feminine. Maxwell was a manly, energetic, capable fellow, a good student, and a young man who, given an equal chance, should make a fine farmer. On that day he was the envy of all the young men of marriageable age in the college. His bride to be, while she seemed made for better things than the ineffably monotonous drudgery of an ordinary farmer's wife, was nevertheless skilled enough, capable enough, resolute enough, to master her lot and be happy in it whatever it might be. She was a handsome girl, tall, straight, strong, black-haired, blue-eyed, with the healthiest whiteness in her face that one could imagine.